Friday, March 25, 2011

What do you want to blog about?

You are NOT going to have a good blog if you don't know what to write about. And so many times I see many people just using their blog as their diary, as I said yesterday. Unless you're a celebrity, not many people want to read about your daily lives. And general blogs are just so annoying, too! You have to have some sort of common theme to your blog, otherwise there is no point in following you. Don't even get me started on those blogs that just post something they find on the internet and do nothing else.... Now, there ARE a few exceptions to this rule, but you have to already be a very good writer to pull this off.

But you don't have to be a very good writer to have an interesting blog. It helps, but if your subject is interesting, you'll get readers that way too. And the great thing about writing is that the more you do it-- the better you get! So don't worry, it'll come along.

So let's begin with today's lesson. If you don't know what to write about, hopefully you'll find this pretty helpful. When considering what your blog should be about, remember:

1. It MUST be something you can write about for a long period of time. This blog is going to be going on for longer than a week, right? So you need to be able to hunker down and stick to it. Some people have been blogging for months; even years! It's definitely possible to find something you like that much.

2. You must be able to type a lot about it in a small period of time. A decent blog has at least three paragraphs. A GOOD blog has more pretty consistently. The exception to this rule is when you're making a quick update or you've fleshed out that topic as much as you can. Occasional small posts are perfectly time-- we're all human, and we need down time. However, a majority of the time, you should be able to talk about what you're doing pretty well. Another exception to this rule is maybe you're doing a blog with your own pictures, comics, or music. My other blog regularly has my comics up with only a paragraph or two of written word after it. That's because the comic itself takes hours to draw. You just have to look like you give a damn and put in some effort, okay?

It may be daunting to write that much at first, but trust me. Writing is easy if it's about a subject you care about.

3. Do NOT make your blog's main focus all about your daily life, unless there is something interesting about it. No one truly cares if you're going shopping, what you ate, what video game you played, and how long it took you to brush your teeth. Would you follow a random person like that? No! BUT, there are ways you can spin your daily life to make it interesting. If you go shopping a lot, why not make a shopping blog? That way you CAN make it about your daily life, but have a little more focus on the shopping part. Enjoy eating a lot? Make a food blog! Are you a funny person? Well, spin that daily life blog into a satirical, comedic blog-- most stand up comedians get their inspiration from daily life, so it CAN be done.

Alright, keep those three rules in mind always, because they'll help you write your blog. But often, people get caught up in what to write about. People don't realize that coming up with this is terribly easy! Grab a pencil and a piece of paper (yes, not a keyboard and word processor, you have to go from your gut here), and ask yourself these things:

Do you have any hobbies you really enjoy?
What were you favorite subjects in school?
Was there anything you idolized as a child?
What talents do you have?
What do you do for a living? (Again, it can be spun in the right way to be interesting)

Try to write as many as things down as you can for each question. Then look at each of them-- it especially helps if it's in your own handwriting, and think about which words in particular made you feel something as you wrote it. If you got a positive gut reaction from the word Chemistry, make a Chemistry blog -- believe me, if someone likes it, there's a niche for it out there somewhere. As long as it doesn't break any of the three rules, you'll be fine.

Hopefully you have an idea about what you want to write about, and what you can write about. If you think you don't want to put this much effort into your blog... Well, sorry. Your blog sucks. But for those of us who want to have a fucking awesome blog that we can actually be proud of, we realize that more effort = greater rewards.

If this post helped you, feel free to share a link to your blog in the comments below! Remember to say how it helped; don't just be a blog whore.

Good tips. I am pretty set into what I am writing. Nothing is worse then the video game/whatever blogs that only last for a couple weeks. A lot of times the writers have potential, it's just that video games is such an over done topic, no one wants to hear it anymore unless you're good.

One pro tip I would like to share is to use a talk to text program like Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I've been using it for a few months now, and I have to say that it makes long posts almost effortless. Takes a while to train it though.

I agree on several of your points. I started out as a general blog where I would post stories, stuff about my day to day life, poems, etc. But then I got into posting reviews on mostly movies, with some TV and games thrown in for good measure. I used to work in movie rentals, so I'm used to being asked what I thought of them. I was asked so often that I watch movies with the question in mind "How would I recommend this to others."

For anyone interested, my blog can be found at http://smokind.blogspot.com

This is frustrating for me, because I've got a bunch of totally unrelated things that I'm passionate about, and I don't want to totally alienate my Starcraft II audience when I make a post about Breastfeeding, lol. But I don't really have the time yet to manage multiple blogs. -_- I'll get it figured out eventually.

Thanks for having this blog, though. It's amazing how difficult having a good blog can be, and OMG there are LOTS of people who need help. LOL